Stop The Presses

In what can only be regarded as a stunning op-ed in, of all places, the New York Times, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution make the case that the US is winning in Iraq. Both of these men have been harshly critical of the war effort to date, so this is a shocker.

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

O'Hanlon and Pollack detail vastly improved troop morale – attributable directly to the command of General Petraeus, greatly improved relations with everyday Iraqis, better focus on security and civilian needs and much, much more. Coming from these two critics and with the Brookings stamp on it, this is very significant. An illustration of how much better it is in Iraq:

The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave.

In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

Please read the whole thing, it is that important.

UPDATE: That didn't take long. Apparently the "big tent" hasn't room for any dissent:

I have a new litmus test for the Dem Presidential candidates – they must promise not to have Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollock in their administration.

“harshly critical of the war effort to date”? Are you serious? O’hanlon and pollack? They were two of the most pro-war think tankers around in 2002 and 2003 and they fully supported and endorsed the surge. Just because two hard core war cheerleaders get published on the op-ed page of the times doesn’t mean that what they’re saying is true. When are my fellow REAL republicans going to wake up to the reality that Iraq is in a civil war that we can’t “win”, and we need to bring our boys home. I’m starting to think that most of the vocal republican bloggers are people that have never been in the military themselves and just go along with whatever GWB’s latest rationalization for his failed policy might be. Wake up. What we’re doing now is as bad as the failed democrat policies of the vietnam war, and if we don’t get our act together, hillary freaking clinton is going to be the president of the country. How did we possibly screw things up THAT badly? We had our chance to win and secure the peace. It didn’t happen, and it’s not going to start happening now.

Both of these men have been harshly critical of the war effort to date, so this is a shocker.

O’Hanlon and Pollack have never been “harshly critical of the war effort,” Gaius. They both supported the invasion and have supported the war ever since. And back in September 2003, O’Hanlon was telling the media that things were going great in Iraq, even while he writes now that he was a critic back then. He wasn’t.

Did you click on the link to Michael O’Hanlon’s March 18 piece in the NYT, Gaius? It’s very upbeat about progress in Iraq since the surge began. There’s no “harsh criticism” here.

The second piece is also not at all critical of the war or the surge. It describes the problems, but it doesn’t state any opposition to U.S. troops being in Iraq. In fact, if you look at the end of the article, Pollack clearly is opposed to withdrawing troops, and he argues for some kind of “containment” strategy — meaning a semi-permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq.

You’ll have to do better than this if you want to show that O’Hanlon and Pollack are liberals who have suddenly started to support the war after being harshly critical of it.